Inside Housing has reported that a group of eight housing associations hired a lobbying firm to “reduce the capacity of tenants” to pursue “inappropriate” disrepair claims. The eight organisations are Riverside, ForHousing, Onward, Prima, Regenda, Salix Homes, Shepherd’s Bush HG and Torus.
The move came in response to a rapid increase in the number of disrepair claims being issued against social housing providers in recent years. In an internal report for the group, Riverside described the rise in housing conditions claims across the sector as an “epidemic” that it said was being “driven by unscrupulous claims management companies”. Riverside said at the time of the report that it was managing 353 live housing conditions claims, with a projected risk to the business of £3.55m based on an average cost of £11,000 per claim settled.